Gwen Olsen, author of the book Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher, recently popped up on Youtube, and I wandered across an interesting little clip entitled "Ex-Pharmaceutical Rep. Speaks Out". In this eight-minute clip, Olsen describes her experiences being prescribed an insane succession of antidepressants, having incredibly adverse reactions, getting prescribed even more antidepressants, and eventually having to quit the industry as she realizes that big pharma's goal is essentially to label everyone with some kind of disorder, both to make them "lifelong customers" and as "a social control mechanism."
Obviously I have no idea about Olsen's credibility; clearly she has books to sell. But I might not have paid much attention to this video if I hadn't seen a different report, earlier this week, about the undue amount of influence that pharmaceutical reps wage in general over doctors in this country. Drug reps are constantly pressing doctors to influence their prescribing habits, and when you're talking about drugs that severely influence people's behavior, these reps - and the companies they work for - could clearly wage undue influence. I'm no conspiracy nut, but I also believe that corporations like the big pharma corps definitely operate on a scale that their own employees can't comprehend, and I don't find it hard to believe at all that big pharma has a serious interest in making sure we all get our diagnoses.
